Rethinking relevance, rebuilding engagement: Findings from the second wave of a national survey about culture, creativity, community and the arts
By: Research Team @ Slover Linett
January 31, 2022
This report offers culminating analysis and reflections from our pandemic-era, equity-focused research collaboration with LaPlaca Cohen and Yancey Consulting, Culture + Community in a Time of Transformation: A Special Edition of Culture Track. Co-authored by Jen Benoit-Bryan, PhD, Madeline Smith, MA, and Peter Linett, the Wave 2 report explores the experiences, values, and hopes of arts and culture participants and the broader American public during the second year of the pandemic. An in-depth survey was completed by more than 75,000 adults across the U.S., many of them invited by 500+ participating arts, culture and community organizations of all types and sizes, and some of them reached through a nationally representative panel operated by NORC at the University of Chicago.
The authors aim to inform the work of changemakers across the field: arts and museum leaders, artists and activists, funders and policymakers, and other practitioners working in, with, and for their communities. They describe the dynamics of race and identity in cultural engagement, the roles Americans want arts and culture organizations to play in social change, perceptions of systemic racism in specific fields of arts and culture, and how digital engagement with creativity and culture has been changing as the pandemic has persisted. The report includes a powerful foreword by poet and social-impact leader Marc Bamuthi Joseph.
The 2021 phases of the research have been funded by the Wallace Foundation, Barr Foundation, William Penn Foundation, Knight Foundation, Aroha Philanthropies, and the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, with crucial in-kind support from FocusVision (now Forsta).
Click on the images below to view and download the full report, executive summary, and the supporting appendices.
Read and download the full report!
View the Executive Summary
Appendix A – E
Appendix F – H
Culture + Community is a collaborative effort to keep the cultural sector in dialogue with its communities and participants during the pandemic and inform deeper equity and justice in the years to come. Read more about this national research and our project partners by visiting the project site:
